thebdj Posted September 11, 2009 Share Posted September 11, 2009 Interesting one this. On my daily check of Golddust (Broody Silkie), she regularly has 2 or 3 of the 6 eggs she is sitting on right on her periphery. Let me set the scene. She is currently in an isolated 400ft run and in a rabbit hutch. The hutch itself is one of those 5' x 2' triangle affairs (bit like a toblerone) with a sheltered bit at one end and what is like a small run. I leave the small run door open so she can come out during the day for a poo, which she is doing every day. Good girl. Anyway, in the 'nesting box', which is full of straw, she has carved herself a nest which is bigger than her surface area. She has always done this when laying as well, which is interesting as all of my other chickens carve a hole which they can fill when they lay eggs. So what I keep seeing is 2 or 3 of these eggs which have crept out from underneath her and are just about covered by the edge of her but are basically creeping towards the edge of where the straw forms, which, as described is not an area she can totally fill. I've tried poking them back under her and that appears to be temporarily effective. I have also tried lining some of the rest of the 'carved nest' with a bit of extra straw, but she appears to re-carve the bigger nest again. I hope this makes sense. I would welcome any comments or suggestions. Want to try and maximise the amount of surrogate children she has Cheers Justin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redwing Posted September 11, 2009 Share Posted September 11, 2009 The same thing happened with my broody, I took this to mean that she was too small to sit on so many eggs and took some off her for the inccy I am sure someone will be along soon to offer proper help! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebdj Posted September 11, 2009 Author Share Posted September 11, 2009 Interesting to hear that you have had the same thing. She is not the smallest silkie I have but she's not very big. If I'm to believe her age given when I got her then she is about 8 months old. I think she is older than that though. Anyway she seems to be doing ok, but yeah if there's advice for this or if the 'poking' technque is the right one then tell me to continue. She pecks the "Ooops, word censored!" out of me when I go near here by the way Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redwing Posted September 11, 2009 Share Posted September 11, 2009 the pecking is a good sign - at least her heart is in it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Griffin Posted September 11, 2009 Share Posted September 11, 2009 My Silkie did this too. She started off with ten bantam eggs and at seven days I removed the four clear ones so she was left with six. She'd always had one or two poking out so I figured the reduction to six would be helpful for her but she still insisted on having some poked out at times. Five of the six hatched, the sixth was fully formed but dead in shell, so I guess she was jiggling them about if she felt they were getting too hot under her. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebdj Posted September 11, 2009 Author Share Posted September 11, 2009 Aha! Now that is fantastic and what I was hoping to hear. I mean she's only got 6 eggs under her anyway and she should be able to cope with that. I have some splash polish/frizzle under her and they aren't massive eggs. One thing I do find is that at intervals when I do check on her she is facing in different directions and at different angles, so it may well be her way of turning the eggs or heating them differently. Will be interesting to see how many, if any do hatch though. This is much more 'copeable' than with the incubator as I can't see what is going on and am just letting nature do it's thing! Cheers Justin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lewis Posted September 11, 2009 Share Posted September 11, 2009 I'd think 6 should be fine, chck them on day 7 and take out any infertile ones. Did you mean a 400 foot run? That sounds huge! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jools Posted September 11, 2009 Share Posted September 11, 2009 She should be fine on six eggs, but it's still not good if she isn't covering them all. The best you can hope for is a delayed hatch. Can you do something with her nest so the eggs are all contained within an area that she can cover, without any escaping and getting chilled? I had this problem earlier in the year, because my attention was elsewhere, and had a mediocre hatch which was five or so days later than it should have been. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebdj Posted September 12, 2009 Author Share Posted September 12, 2009 Feel like an idiot saying this, because it seems so obvious but I put a whole load more straw in there which made it more difficult for her to carve a big hole and also collected the eggs neatly in the middle under her. This has worked beautifully! She covers all of them. Just checking her every day though as she makes a concerted effort to carve a big hole! Will candle the eggs at 7 days and remove anything that aint happening Justin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jools Posted September 12, 2009 Share Posted September 12, 2009 Nice one Fingers crossed for a good hatch (all girlies of course) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
